What if you lived in a dictatorship?

What if you lived in a dictatorship? Perhaps it happened when you were not looking. A little bit lost here. A little bit added on there. Before anyone noticed things had changed. Or maybe no one noticed.

Lets go back to the beginning. Back to when humans were more that just one extended family wandering about but had first clumped into a proto-society. A time when the strongest male with the most brothers and friends probably was the fuhrer. He may have been the most fierce man in the crowd in the beginning. Big, strong, and fast would have given him first picks on the females, a bigger share of the food, and a warmer place in the cave. But eventually some guy near the edge figured a few things out.

The new guy watched things and figured out how stuff happened. He watched what the big man did, but he also watched how the people down the food chain reacted. He learned the subtle signs of suppressed emotions that allowed him to read other people's minds. He knew when someone was angry about their lot in life, and what little things they desired. The next step was to figure out how to give these things people wanted.

When that smart man figured out the rules of manipulation he had devised the biggest weapon yet made. This knowledge was passed on to sons and nephews. It was amplified and refined to a sharper edge. It allowed dynastic power which extended beyond the grave. Those first power controlling techniques work as well today as they did then.